Bohemia: Arma "Spies" Were Only "Experiencing The Island's Beautiful Surroundings"

Earlier today, it was revealed that two developers from Bohemia Interactive (The Arma series) were arrested in Lemnos, Greece for collecting photos and video footage of the nation's military installations -- basically, spying. According to a statement released by their employer, Bohemia Interactive, the pair were on a holiday and visited the island with the "sole purpose of experiencing the island's beautiful surroundings."

"Since its establishment in 1999, Bohemia Interactive has created games based only upon publicly available information," The company explains. "We always respect the law and we've never instructed anybody to violate the laws of any country. The same is true for Arma 3."

Bohemia executive producer Jan Kunt told Computer and Video Games, "There have been developers on Lemnos before taking detailed photographs of things like dirt, fields and fauna. They take photos of lots of flowers and shrubbery and trees to get the environment accurate," although he added, "I don't know where they were caught or what they were doing when they were caught."

"In the past [Lemnos'] mayor [Antonis Hatzidiamantis] was vocal about us using maps and how it is strategically problematic because Greece has NATO's second-largest army [Turkey's] next door to them." Kunt said. He said that the maps Bohemia used were publicly available information. "You can buy it yourselves. The Turkish army can buy it. It's not military-grade intel. It's really nothing more than Google Maps," he said.